The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Decision Making comprehensively surveys theory and research on organizational decision-making, broadly conceived. Emphasizing psychological perspectives, while encompassing the insights of economics, political science, and sociology, it provides coverage at the individual, group, organizational, and inter-organizational levels of analysis. In-depth case studies illustrate the practical implications of the work surveyed. Each chapter is authored by one or more leading scholars, thus ensuring that this Handbook is an authoritative reference work for academics, researchers, advanced students, and reflective practitioners concerned with decision-making in the areas of Management, Psychology, and HRM. Contributors: Eric Abrahamson, Julia Balogun, Michael L. Barnett, Philippe Baumard, Nicole Bourque, Laure Cabantous, Prithviraj Chattopadhyay, Kevin Daniels, Jerker Denrell, Vinit M. Desai, Giovanni Dosi, Roger L.M. Dunbar, Stephen M. Fiore, Mark A. Fuller, Michael Shayne Gary, Elizabeth George, Jean-Pascal Gond, Paul Goodwin, Terri L. Griffith, Mark P. Healey, Gerard P. Hodgkinson, Gerry Johnson, Michael Johnson-Cramer, Alfred Kieser, Ann Langley, Eleanor T. Lewis, Dan Lovallo, Rebecca Lyons, Peter M. Madsen, A. John Maule, John M. Mezias, Nigel Nicholson, Gregory B. Northcraft, David Oliver, Annie Pye, Karlene H. Roberts, Jacques Rojot, Michael A. Rosen, Isabelle Royer, Eugene Sadler-Smith, Eduardo Salas, Kristyn A. Scott, Zur Shapira, Carolyne Smart, Gerald F. Smith, Emma Soane, Paul R. Sparrow, William H. Starbuck, Matt Statler, Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, Michal Tamuz, Teri Jane Ursacki-Bryant, Ilan Vertinsky, Benedicte Vidaillet, Jane Webster, Karl E. Weick, Benjamin Wellstein, George Wright, Kuo Frank Yu, and David Zweig.

Many of the complex problems faced by decision makers involve uncertainty as well as multiple conflicting objectives. This book provides a complete understanding of the types of objective functions that should be used in multiattribute decision making. By using tools such as preference, value, and utility functions, readers will learn state-of-the-art methods to analyze prospects to guide decision making and will develop a process that guarantees a defensible analysis to rationalize choices. Summarizing and distilling classical techniques and providing extensive coverage of recent advances in the field, the author offers practical guidance on how to make good decisions in the face of uncertainty. This text will appeal to graduate students and practitioners alike in systems engineering, operations research, business, management, government, climate change, energy, and healthcare.

This new anthology is a comprehensive introduction to the field of risk theory. The introduction provides the ideal starting point for students and professionals new to risk studies and offers a concise refresher for researchers and practitioners. Coverage includes the origins of the 'concept of risk' and its often misunderstood cousin 'uncertainty, ' before moving on to address risk perception, risk communication, the idea of trust and post trust as well as risk in policy and regulation with a close look at the Precautionary Principle. Following the introduction, the volume includes a selection of the most significant and influential works on risk in their entirety. These selections, organized thematically to cover the breadth and depth of the field, provide greater detail and elaborate on the key themes and major developments in risk studies. Together they comprise the essential literature necessary for a full understanding of risk theory and practice on any issue and in any context.

A thought-provoking and invaluable book for anyone who cares about risk communication and management in the 21st century Anna Jung, Director General, European Food Information Council Professor Ragnar L fstedt has once again produced a most interesting book on risk management and trust, well-based on theory and built on empirical findings Mikael Karlsson, President, Swedish Society for Nature Conservation Highlights the difficult balancing task facing risk regulators. Regulatory inaction against real risks can undermine public trust. However, exaggerated responses to risks can also jeopardize regulators credibility. The diverse international case studies developed by Ragnar L fstedt provide guidance for how regulators can navigate these and other frequently competing concerns W. Kip Viscusi, Cogan Professor of Law and Economics, Harvard University, USA In democracies, government policies cannot succeed without public acceptance. Yet complex risk management requires technical expertise. How to reconcile these competing needs? Ragnar L fstedt provocatively challenges recent research claiming that risk managers must engender public trust via deliberative dialogue. He uses four cases studies to argue that the reasons for distrust vary and demand different responses; that in some cases trust can flow from technical competence without public deliberation; and that in others public deliberation can actually aggravate distrust. Trust me: L fstedt s book will add spice to the debate over risk, experts, the public and trust Jonathan B. Wiener, Perkins Professor of Law and Environmental Policy, Duke University, USA We live in post-trust societies, in which public confidence in governments and corporations over health, food and environmental risk is eroding rapidly. Good risk communication can help companies, governments and institutions minimize disputes, resolve issues and anticipate problems. Without such communication, the best policies can become derailed and trust can be lost. Most policy-makers still use outdated methods to communicate policies and achieve their objectives - methods developed before public trust in industry and government was affected by health scares such as BSE, genetically modified organisms and dioxins in Belgian chicken. This book provides effective methods for managing and communicating risk effectively in contemporary societies.

This new volume explores the crisis in transatlantic relations and analyses the role of NATO following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The book offers a unified theory of cooperation in the new security paradigm to explain the current state of transatlantic relations and NATO's failure to adequately transform itself into a security institution for the 21st century. It argues that a new preoccupation with risk filled the vacuum left by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and uses the literature of the Risk Society to analyse the strained politics of the North Atlantic community. Using case studies to show how the West has pursued a strategy of risk management, and the effect this has had on NATO's politics, the book argues that a better understanding of how risk affects Western political cohesion will allow policy makers a way of adapting the structure of NATO to make it more effective as a tool for security. Having analysed NATO's recent failings, the book offers a theory for the way in which it can become an active risk manager, through the replacement of its established structure by smaller, ad hoc groupings.

The Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication explores the scope and purpose of risk, and its counterpart, crisis, to facilitate the understanding of these issues from conceptual and strategic perspectives. Recognizing that risk is a central feature of our daily lives, found in relationships, organizations, governments, the environment, and a wide variety of interactions, contributors to this volume explore such questions as: "What is likely to happen, to whom, and with what consequences?"; "To what extent can science and vigilance prevent or mitigate negative outcomes?"; and "What obligation do some segments of local, national, and global populations have to help other segments manage risks?", shedding light on the issues in the quest for definitive answers. The Handbook offers a broad approach to the study of risk and crisis as joint concerns. Chapters explore the reach of crisis and risk communication, define and examine key constructs, and parse the contexts of these vital areas. As a whole, the volume presents a comprehensive array of studies that highlight the standard principles and theories on both topics, serving as the largest effort to date focused on engaging risk communication discussions in a comprehensive manner. With perspectives from psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, and communication, the Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication enlarges the approach to defining and recognizing risk and how should it best be managed. It provides vital insights for all disciplines studying risk, including communication, public relations, business, and psychology, and will be required reading for scholars and researchers investigating risk and crisis in various contexts.

The technological age has seen a range of catastrophic and preventable failures, often as a result of decisions that did not appropriately consider safety as a factor in design and engineering. Through more than a dozen practical examples from the author 's experience in nuclear power, aerospace, and other potentially hazardous facilities, Choosing Safety is the first book to bring together probabilistic risk assessment and decision analysis using real case studies. For managers, project leaders, engineers, scientists, and interested students, Michael V. Frank focuses on methods for making logical decisions about complex engineered systems and products in which safety is a key factor in design - and where failure can cause great harm, injury, or death.

Risk management deals with prevention, decision-making, action taking, crisis management and recovery, taking into account consequences of unexpected events. The authors of this book are interested in ecological processes, human behavior, as well as the control and management of life-critical systems, which are potentially highly automated.Three main attributes define life-critical systems, i.e., safety, efficiency and comfort. They typically lead to complex and time-critical issues and can belong to domains such as transportation (trains, cars, aircraft), energy (nuclear, chemical engineering), health, telecommunications, manufacturing and services.The topics covered are related to risk management principles, methods and tools, and include situation awareness and the impact of new technology, reliability assessment: human errors as well as system failures, emotions, procedures, system monitoring, control and management, socio-organizational issues of crisis occurrence and management, co-operative work including human-machine cooperation and CSCW, responsibility and accountability: task and function allocation, authority sharing, interactivity, networking and management evolution and lessons learned from Human-Centered Design.

The Nordic welfare states have found themselves in the firing line of post-industrial developments, resulting in fundamental changes in societal institutions at all levels. In particular, changes in the labour market and family, reinforced by processes of migration and international market integration, have presented the welfare states with new social needs to attend to. This book critically explores responses to changing social risks across areas such as structural unemployment, entrepreneurship, immigration, single parenthood, education and health. It explores critical changes in the structure of the Nordic welfare states and the social policy strategies for alleviating social risks. While the Nordic countries are shining in most international comparisons, such changes and their wider implications have often been overlooked in the literature. The book raises the question whether certain risks are even being evoked actively through new social policies instating incentive structures concomitant with policy goals in order to encourage certain behaviour among citizens.

This is a major, and deeply thoughtful, contribution to understanding uncertainty and risk. Our world and its unprecedented challenges need such ways of thinking! Much more than a set of contributions from different disciplines, this book leads you to explore your own way of perceiving your own area of work. An outstanding contribution that will stay on my shelves for many years. Dr Neil T. M. Hamilton, Director, WWF International Arctic Programme This collection of essays provides a unique and fascinating overview of perspectives on uncertainty and risk across a wide variety of disciplines. It is a valuable and accessible sourcebook for specialists and laypeople alike. Professor Renate Schubert, Head of the Institute for Environmental Decisions and Chair of Economics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology This comprehensive collection of disciplinary perspectives on uncertainty is a definitive guide to contemporary insights into this Achilles heel of modernity and the endemic hubris of institutional science in its role as public authority. It gives firm foundations to the fundamental historic shift now underway in the world, towards normalizing acceptance of the immanent condition of ignorance and of its practical corollaries: contingency, uncontrol, and respect for difference. Brian Wynne, Professor of Science Studies, Lancaster University Bammer and Smithson have assembled a fascinating, important collection of papers on uncertainty and its management. The integrative nature of Uncertainty and Risk makes it a landmark in the intellectual history of this vital cross-disciplinary concept. George Cvetkovich, Director, Center for Cross-Cultural Research, Western Washington University Uncertainty governs our lives. From the unknowns of living with the risks of terrorism to developing policies on genetically modified foods, or disaster planning for catastrophic climate change, how we conceptualize, evaluate and cope with uncertainty drives our actions and deployment of resources, decisions and priorities. In this thorough and wide-ranging volume, theoretical perspectives are drawn from art history, complexity science, economics, futures, history, law, philosophy, physics, psychology, statistics and theology. On a practical level, uncertainty is examined in emergency management, intelligence, law enforcement, music, policy and politics. Key problems that are a subject of focus are environmental management, communicable diseases and illicit drugs. Opening and closing sections of the book provide major conceptual strands in uncertainty thinking and develop an integrated view of the nature of uncertainty, uncertainty as a motivating or de-motivating force, and strategies for coping and managing under uncertainty.

This book is unique in identifying and presenting tools to environmental decision-makers to help them improve the quality and clarity of their work. These tools range from software to policy approaches, and from environmental databases to focus groups. This title is equally of value to environmental managers, and students in environmental risk, policy, economics and law.

Winning takes many forms. For fans of Matthew Syed, this is a great sports book about leadership, judgement and decision-making - rooted in the theory that helped Ed Smith lead England cricket to sustained success. And to help us all win more. 'An absolutely fascinating book' THE GAME, The Times football pod How do you spot the opportunities that others miss? How do you turn a team's performance around? How do you make good decisions amid a tidal wave of information? And how can you improve? As chief selector for the England cricket team, Ed Smith pioneered new methods for building successful teams and watched his decisions tested in real time on the pitch. During his three-year tenure, England averaged 7 wins in every 10 completed matches, better than they have performed before or since. Making Decisions reveals Smith's unique approach to finding success in a fast-changing and increasingly data-reliant world. The best decisions, Smith argues, rely on a combination of differing kinds of intelligence: from algorithms to intuition. This is a truth that the most successful people know: data cannot account for everything, it must be harnessed with human insight. Whatever the power of data, humans aren't finished yet. Sharing for the first time the tools he introduced as England selector, Smith's book captures the immediacy of life at the sharp end, while also exploring frameworks from the top levels of sports, business and the arts. Decision-making is revealed as a creative enterprise, not a reductive system. Making Decisions offers an invaluable guide for those who want a better framework for developing, explaining and implementing new ideas.

This book aims to take the reader through all aspects of fire safety and management in residential settings, from origin and ignition, risk assessment, protection and prevention, as well as comparing effective enforcement options from across all parts of the UK. It outlines the basis of law, standards and guidance relating to fire safety and building performance, and critically evaluates the legal provisions and approaches to risk reduction with the focus on rented properties. This book: Provides wider access to fire safety knowledge previously generally used by regulators and specialists. Examines fire risk assessments in domestic premises and the competency of assessors. Explains the approaches to fire safety enforcement the impact of property licensing. Includes fire risk precautions for housing and general checklists to help landlords and tenants understand their responsibilities Explores the effect of existing legislation with references to key Property Tribunal decisions relating to fire risk management and future legal developments. This book will assist Environmental Health Officers and Environmental Health Practitioners - as well as graduating academics of the field - in their work to encourage the appropriate and effective use of legislation. Landlords, Estate managers, student accommodation managers, surveyors and tenant groups may also find this book of interest.

Researchers have revealed that real expertise, while applied to well-defined tasks with highly circumscribed contexts, often stretches beyond its routine boundaries. For example, a medical doctor may be called upon to diagnose a rare disease or perform emergency surgery outside his or her area of specialization because other experts are not available. Moreover, in some cases, the context for expertise is in a constant state of flux, such that no one case is identical. "Expertise Out of Context "is a culmination of some of the most insightful studies conducted by researchers in the fields of cognitive systems engineering and naturalistic decision making in the effort to better understand expertise and its development.
Born out of the Sixth International Conference on Naturalistic Decision Making, a conference that gathers researchers who study cognition, perception, and reasoning outside of the traditional laboratory, this book is organized in five parts, the first of which provides an overview of the topic and presents varied perspectives. Consequent sections cover how to make sense of things, tools for thinking out of context, how to cope with uncertainty in a changing workplace, and teams operating out of context.
As researchers in naturalistic decision making have investigated such areas as the knowledge and decision-making skills of expert firefighters, critical care nurses, military commanders, and aircraft pilots, this volume is of importance to an expansive audience, including individuals in business, government, industry, and society at large.

Trust is an important factor in risk management, affecting judgements of risk and benefit, technology acceptance and other forms of cooperation. In this book the world's leading risk researchers explore all aspects of trust as it relates to risk management and communication. Drawing on a wide variety of disciplinary approaches and empirical case studies (on topics such as mobile phone technology, well-known food accidents and crises, wetland management, smallpox vaccination, cooperative risk management of US forests and the disposal of the Brent Spar oil drilling platform), this is the most thorough and up-to-date examination of trust in all its forms and complexities. The book integrates diverse research traditions and provides new insights into the phenomenon of trust. Factors that lead to the establishment and erosion of trust are identified. Insightful analyses are provided for researchers and students of environmental and social science and professionals engaged in risk management and communication in both public and private sectors. Related titles The Tolerability of Risk (2007) 978-1-84407-398-6

There is an increasing dissatisfaction about how risk is regulated, leading to vivid debates about the use of 'risk assessment' and 'precaution'. As a result, academics, government officials and industry leaders are calling for new approaches and fresh ideas. This book provides a historical and topical perspective on the alternative concept of 'Tolerability of Risk' and its concrete regulatory applications. In the UK, Tolerability of Risk has been developed into a sophisticated framework, particularly within the health and safety sectors. It is expected to guide decision-makers when applying their legal obligation of keeping risks as low as practically reasonable. Could Tolerability of Risk become a wider source of inspiration across the full scope of risk analysis and management? Written by leading academics and risk practitioners from industry and government, The Tolerability of Risk presents a summary of theoretical perspectives on risk approaches, providing a detailed elicitation of the methods and approaches used to build the Tolerability of Risk framework and examining the prospect of universal application of that framework. From nuclear power to environmental pollution, climate change and drug testing, the Tolerability of Risk framework may offer a workable, pragmatic solution for balancing risks against the costs involved in controlling them, as well as developing the institutional capacity to make effective decisions in all jurisdictions worldwide.

The role of designers has traditionally been to design a building so that it conforms to accepted local building codes. The safety of workers is left up to the contractor building the designs. Research shows, however, that designers can have an especially strong influence on construction safety during the concept, preliminary and detailed design phases. This book establishes the new knowledge and conceptual frameworks necessary to develop a mobile computing-enabled knowledge management system that can help reduce the high rate of construction falls. There are three main objectives of this book: 1. To create a new Prevention through Design (PtD) knowledge base to model the relationships between fall risks and design decisions; 2. To develop a PtD mobile App to assist building designers in fall prevention through design; 3. To evaluate the practical implications of the PtD mobile App for the construction industry, especially for building designers and workers. The cutting edge technologies explored in this book have the potential to significantly reduce the rate of serious injuries that occur in the global construction industry. This is essential reading for researchers and advanced students of construction management with an interest in safety or mobile technologies.

All of human life may be seen as a process of decision-making, but it is only in recent years and in response to the needs of the large and complex organizations characterizing our society that this process has been subjected to scientific scrutiny. Out of this scrutiny--undertaken by a wide range of professionals in economics, administration, management, statistics, psychology, engineering, computer science, operations research, and systems analysis--there has begun to emerge a body of theory that has profound implications for improving practical decision-making. This book is the first to bring together all the various aspects of decision theory into one cohesive treatment, focusing on the meaning of "best" decisions and how "best" can be attained in practice. Professor White deals generally with the two major aspects of decision-making: uncertainty and utility (values), and how-using statistical theory, utility theory, game theory, and all the other components that go into decision theory- these can be measured and brought together into effective decision-making criteria. Particular attention is given to problems of knowledge and to the general place of information theory in decision-making; to the notion of "measurability" in this context; to the differences between the physical and human sciences, showing the scope for scientific method in seeking better decision making; and to problem-solving behavior and the problem environment, since these are vital aspects in the practical application of decision theory. Uniquely synthesizing the various aspects of contemporary decision theory, the book clearly and coherently illuminates the very subtle concepts of "better" decision-making. Its focus on the implications of theory for practical decisions will make the book a basic tool for professors and practitioners of operations research, management science, systems analysis, computer sciences, and other fields; and as the first basic text dealing with this subject, it will be widely used for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on decision theory in departments of economics, statistics, and psychology, and in schools of business and engineering. "D.J. White" is presently professor and Head of the Department of Operational Research at Strathclyde University. He has had more than ten years experience in this field, two and a half of which were spent in research specifically on the examination of decision theory in the light of practical problem solving.

Probability theory is a key tool of the physical, mathematical, and social sciences. It has also been playing an increasingly significant role in philosophy: in epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, social philosophy, philosophy of religion, and elsewhere. A case can be made that probability is as vital a part of the philosopher's toolkit as logic. Moreover, there is a fruitful two-way street between probability theory and philosophy: the theory informs much of the work of philosophers, and philosophical inquiry, in turn, has shed considerable light on the theory. This Handbook encapsulates and furthers the influence of philosophy on probability, and of probability on philosophy. Nearly forty articles summarise the state of play and present new insights in various areas of research at the intersection of these two fields. The articles will be of special interest to practitioners of probability who seek a greater understanding of its mathematical and conceptual foundations, and to philosophers who want to get up to speed on the cutting edge of research in this area. There is plenty here to entice philosophical readers who don't work especially on probability but who want to learn more about it and its applications. Indeed, this volume should appeal to the intellectually curious generally; after all, there is much here to be curious about. We do not expect all of this volume's audience to have a thorough training in probability theory. And while probability is relevant to the work of many philosophers, they often do not have much of a background in its formalism. With this in mind, we begin with 'Probability for Everyone-Even Philosophers', a primer on those parts of probability theory that we believe are most important for philosophers to know. The rest of the volume is divided into seven main sections: History; Formalism; Alternatives to Standard Probability Theory; Interpretations and Interpretive Issues; Probabilistic Judgment and Its Applications; Applications of Probability: Science; and Applications of Probability: Philosophy.

This companion to the bestselling Introduction to Health and Safety at Work will help you prepare for the written assessments on the NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety (2019 specification). It provides complete coverage of the syllabus in bite-sized chunks and will help you learn and memorise the most important areas, with links provided back to the main Introduction to Health and Safety at Work text to help you consolidate your learning. Small and portable, making it ideal for use anywhere: at home, in the classroom or on the move Includes specimen questions and answers based on recent examination papers Everything you need for productive revision in one handy reference source This revision guide is written by an experienced lecturer and former Vice Chairman of NEBOSH, who has spent many years helping students become accredited by NEBOSH.

We live in a 'risk society' where the identification, distribution and management of risks, from new technology, environmental factors or other sources are crucial to our individual and social existence.Jeanne and Roger Kasperson are two of the world's leading and most influential analysts of the social dimensions of risk. The Social Contours of Risk brings together in two volumes their most important contributions to this fundamental and wide-ranging field.Volume 1 collects their fundamental work on how risks are communicated among different publics and stakeholders, including local communities, corporations and the larger society. It analyses the problems of lack of transparency and trust and explores how even minor effects can be amplified and distorted through media and social responses, preventing effective management. The final section investigates the difficult ethical issues raised by the unequal distribution of risk depending on factors such as wealth, location and genetic inheritance -- with examples from worker and public protection, facility siting conflicts, transporting hazardous waste and widespread impacts such as climate change.Volume 2 centers on the analysis and management of risk in society, in international business and multinationals, and globally. The 'acceptability' of risk to an individual depends on the context, whether the larger society or in, say, a corporate framework. Their work clarifies the structures and processes for managing risks in the private sector, and the factors that produce or impede effective decisions. Corporate culture is crucial as they show in determining risk management. They analyze the transfer of corporate risk management systems fromindustrial to developing countries, and how globalization is spreading and creating new kinds of risk -- the combination of traditional and modern hazards presented by climate change, technology transfer and economic growth. They describe the new priorities and capacities needed to deal with these enhanced vulnerabilities around the globe.

We live in a 'risk society' where the identification, distribution and management of risks, from new technology, environmental factors or other sources are crucial to our individual and social existence.Jeanne and Roger Kasperson are two of the world's leading and most influential analysts of the social dimensions of risk. 'The Social Contours of Risk' brings together in two volumes their most important contributions to this fundamental and wide-ranging field.Volume 2 centers on the analysis and management of risk in society, in international business and multinationals, and globally. The 'acceptability' of risk to an individual depends on the context, whether in the larger society or in, say, a corporate framework. Their work clarifies the structures and processes for managing risks in the private sector, and the factors that produce or impede effective decisions. Corporate culture is crucial as they show in determining risk management. They analyze the transfer of corporate risk management systems from industrial to developing countries, and how globalization is spreading and creating new kinds of risk -- the combination of traditional and modern hazards presented by climate change, technology transfer and economic growth. They describe the new priorities and capacities needed to deal with these enhanced vulnerabilities around the globe.

An analogy is a comparison that points out the similarities between things that are different in all other respects. Teaching students how to solve analogies not only develops their logical thinking, but also builds visual awareness and verbal proficiency. The seven different types of visual analogies and 14 different verbal analogies in Analogies for Beginners are perfect for beginning lessons in logical reasoning, flexible thinking, and vocabulary. Each page gives students an example of the type of analogy that is being introduced and then provides 7 (visual) or 10 (verbal) problems for them to solve. This combination of verbal and visual formats is an ideal way to introduce logical thinking in primary grades. Whether you have time for one analogy a day or a worksheet a week, students will benefit in many ways when analogies are part of your curriculum. The use of visual analogies is beneficial for developing visual analysis even for older students, but especially useful for nonreaders and students with developing English skills. The verbal analogies provide students with exercises that require them to use word comprehension and also to examine various characteristics, uses, and relationships. This is one of a series of analogy books. For younger students, use First Time Analogies. For older students, use Thinking Through Analogies, Analogies for the 21st Century, or Advancing Though Analogies. Grades 1-3